Barney Frank won't go quietly

Even in retirement, Barney Frank promises to antagonize the right wing.

The 72-year-old Massachusetts representative ends a storied congressional career in less than three weeks. In a tenure that spanned more than three decades, Frank has helped lead the civil rights debate as one of the first openly gay elected officials, crafted a financial reform bill designed to prevent another global crisis and become a liberal hero for his willingness to clash with conservative critics.

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His days on C-SPAN may be almost over. And he has already moved out of his Capitol Hill office and Washington apartment. But this man will not go away quietly.

Frank has retained Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel to ensure he is a paid fixture on cable television, the lecture circuit, in bookstores - and maybe the occasional sitcom or Broadway show. He has already sent his agent two book proposals, one offering a recipe for future liberal success and the other a “semi-memoir” about the history of the gay rights movement. And he leaves Washington with a particular disdain for Fox News.

“I’m hoping to get paid well to do what I do now for nothing,” a relaxed Frank said last week from the anonymity of an unmarked temporary office across the street from the Capitol dome. Much of his staff is gone. He answers the phone himself with an abrupt, “Yeah?” And he’s learning how to check his own email for the first time in his life.

Look for him soon on a television set near you.

Frank has little interest in hosting his own cable television show but plans to be a regular paid commentator on political programs. When asked for which network, he says he’s only begun to narrow the field: “Not Fox,” Frank declares with no hint of a smile.

“I have no interest in encouraging people to watch it,” he says of Fox News. “They’re so overwhelmingly biased that being a voice there a few minutes a week, an hour a week, it lends a legitimacy they don’t deserve.”

Frank’s unapologetic criticism of conservatives has earned him a special place in the political arena. He has become a polarizing figure on the national stage celebrated by liberals and hated by conservatives. He dismisses the hatred as a validation of his effectiveness and calls it “a source of pride.” But Frank’s congressional career is dotted with colorful and cringe-worthy confrontations.

He earned particular notoriety for a remark during a 2009 town hall meeting at the height of the health care debate when asked about President Barack Obama’s “Nazi policy.”

“On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Frank quipped in a clash that became an instant YouTube sensation. “Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to have an argument with a dining room table - I have no interest in doing it.”